Narrow Dog to Carcassonne (21 page)

Monica was delighted because a Frenchman had tried to pick her up on the way back to our table. The ladies explained that a lot of the people were singles, and the men were asking new partners to dance. Indeed on the floor no one was saying Wasn’t it fun in the bath last night. It was chat-up time—After I sold my software business and bought my motorboat I decided all I want is a friend who will be sincere. It was the first pull, the shopfront, the big pitch, like when I talked to Monica about Baudelaire that night so many years ago.

Monica and I mounted the platform at the end of the disco and started to do the jitterbug, which we had learned before rock and roll. We forget about one step per decade, which science has proved to be the rate of loss. Across the floor, up the wall, over the ceiling. Rock me, sailor baby, shimmy my timbers.

As we were going to our table Charles Trenet asked Monica to dance. I am here with my husband, she said, right behind me.
Pardon, monsieur
, he said, flashing that music-hall smile. No problem, I said. No problem at all.

WHY IS YOUR DOG SHIVERING? ASKED THE Englishman. He was on a yacht, which had been modified for the canals. The mast was down, a red bandage tied to the end, and the boat was hung with planks and fenders. It looked humiliated, like Concorde turned into a restaurant. We are leaving tomorrow, I said, and he can tell by our brain waves. He is a coward, and he doesn’t like boating.

This morning we are going up the Canal Saint Martin, I said, under the market of the Avenue Richard Lenoir, and across the north of Paris along the Canal de Saint Denis, and back on to the Seine twenty-five kilometres downriver. Then we will come back upriver all the way through Paris, round the Bois de Boulogne, past the Eiffel Tower, and away south to our winter mooring. I’ll be lucky to get this lash-up to the Med, said the Englishman, without bothering about tunnels. I wish I had stayed out at sea.

It took a long time to say goodbye to Bernard and Bruno and Guillaume. After Jim and he had shared their last desperate kisses Bernard said—I have a Gryphon. It is a big one, very strong. He twisted his face and walked towards us, his arms hanging, like a monster.

My God, I said to Monica afterwards, he has a Gryphon. That’s a cross between an eagle and a lion. I didn’t think they existed. Perhaps he keeps it up the Saint Martin tunnel, and flies it over Paris after dark. It’s a griffon, said Monica, a sort of dog.

After three weeks I enjoyed feeling the boat move again. Jim was in his kennel and Monica was at the sharp end and I switched on the tunnel light and the boiled-sweet navigation lights and the wand on top of the boat that had dazzled me out at sea and we went towards the Bastille métro station and as a train pulled in we slid under the platform and under the streets of Paris.

There was plenty of water in the tunnel, and now and then daylight fell in from the holes above us and plants trailed along the roof. There was no one around, no rats, no gongoozlers, no Gryphon, just walls and arches and vaults, usually a towpath. Then there were fancy floodlights for the trip boats and along the brickwork a black
Phyllis May
sailed through a rainbow.

After twenty minutes we reached a vault like a submarine pen and then we were in the open air, in a lock, and from a footbridge between the trees twenty gongoozlers stared at us rising in the foam. As we left I swept off my bush hat and waved it. The gongoozlers screamed and waved back, as if they had been watching a penguin in the zoo and it had asked them the time.

Seven more locks and we were in the Villette basin. Lunch by the great water—the restaurant looked like a seaside tea parlour but it was racketing full.

THE NEXT MORNING THE GREEN BRIDGE AT the end of the Villette basin rose horizontal into the air, grinding and flashing and cheeping, and we turned left on to the Canal Saint Denis, which goes through the garden shed of Paris. Piles of dust, rusty tools, broken doll’s houses, all the things you couldn’t quite throw away. Then the new model stadium, the Stade de France, hid among the debris ready for Christmas.

In the last lock we sank slowly to the level of the Seine then the man in the tower filled the lock again and asked for another twenty euros—he had noticed on his form that we were a
bateau spécial
. The navigation is run by the city of Paris, and the sharpest minds may be in other departments. I wanted to go back and be nasty but I thought of my good behaviour resolution and anyway we were out on the wide mirror and pushing upstream.

We were heading south, and after fifteen kilometres we would double under the
route périphérique
at the Quai d’Issy and head north towards the Eiffel Tower. Under the bridges of Paris with Jim.

The wind came downstream and turned the mirror into Flemish glass and then broke it into fragments and spots of spray and then the sun came out and set it all on fire. Soon on our right the skyscrapers of La Défense—
C’est magnifique, mais ce n’est pas Manhattan
. And where is the arch? Still facing the wrong way. One or two hulking barges churned by, but otherwise, as usual, we were alone.

Long islands divide the stream. On the Ile Seguin the thirties Renault factory: clothed in white concrete, endless, wonderful. With what passion, what clangour, those halls had rung. Now pigeons whirr under the roof, and nettles dance in the white courts.

Suburbs and offices and apartments and moored boats, the boaters waving. On the right couples and fishermen and people in suits eating sandwiches and now on the left cardboard villages: groups sitting around fires in the cold sun. Every kilometre a mighty bridge: decorated, scrolled, iron, concrete—take any arch you like, they’re all free. Power it through—give those guys on top a wave. And a smile—might as well use the teeth, they cost enough. But can they see and do they care, who stand so far above?

A hot-air balloon rises in the blue, and with five play-bricks of thirty storeys standing guard in line, here comes the Eiffel Tower. But first the Statue of Liberty—are we so far out of our way?

Down on the right the Quai de Grenelle, where a stranger can moor. Monica climbed up on to the quay and we threw a rope round one leg of the Eiffel Tower and tied it off and had a cup of tea and a lie-down. We had been going for seven hours.

THE BOAT LIFTED THREE FEET IN THE AIR AND bellyflopped. I was asleep on the sofa and Jim was asleep on Monica. He sprang into the air and ran to the saloon and pressed himself to the floor with his legs out—I’ve got her, I’ve got her, but I can’t hold her long. More bellyflops—
crash, crash, crash
.

It went on until after midnight, when the
bateaux-mouches
stopped running. They came long and they came very long, and they came very long indeed, lit in bright colours, and they came fast. In the night our back rope, an inch thick, snapped and only a line from our centre ring held us from waking up in Rouen.

We cast off and were gone early, before the tourists left their hotels and the
bateaux-mouches
started flailing by, and headed south.

PARIS STANDS BACK FROM THE RIVER, AS IF afraid it might fall in. The buildings are handsome but not tall compared with the great river, which is wider than the Thames, and there is always a road in front, and trees.

London stands on the water’s edge, peering over, looking for dolphins—the Houses of Parliament right on the water, the London Eye with its feet wet, the offices and monuments hard on you as you sail by, even absurdities like the MI6 building saying Here I am, ships, water, looking right at you, on the scene—hi, how’s the tide running? But Paris is too polite to make a fuss on the waterfront: too beautiful to wear its jewellery on its breast.

And so to Notre-Dame, from the north, past a notice—

On no account go down the right-hand side of this island. It is formally interdicted. It could be gravely hurtful to your health and that of your entourage. You will become incontinent and unable to put on your socks. Do you understand, don’t do it. This is the Ile de la Cité, for Christ’s sake.

I don’t care, I said, I saw a
bateau-mouche
come down last week.

We went down the right-hand cut, under the cathedral, through the little stone bridges, unchallenged.

And then I was sitting in my study at home, officer, and these three men with guns broke in and shot my dog and said we saw you go down the wrong side of the Ile de la Cité—we saw you and now you will have to fill in this form—any more argument and we will pump you full of lead.

On to the broad Seine again, blue, chopping, deserted, leaving behind the moored cathedral and the window just above the water where behind the bars two hundred thousand ghosts looked out, and in the wind the voices of the children—
We only wanted to be free like you, we only wanted to grow old like you
.

Past the ruined open-air sculpture museum, past the runway of The Albatross, past the lock opening into the Bastille basin, then under the knitted Austerlitz viaduct and the Charles de Gaulle javelin. On the right again the South Goodwin light vessel, nodding, nodding, just watch out, just watch out.

Next door a floating chandlery. The gentleman on board let down a ladder. That will be a euro a litre,
madame
, he said. And it is the end of the season and we have only one fender left, and it is white, and I am over eighty years of age, and what do you think of that?

On the boat the phone rang—the lady we had met in Namur, whose husband had told us about the eleven sunken narrowboats. She had fallen down a hatch and had been in hospital for a month. A thousand miles, said Monica—we have come far enough and we have pushed our luck far enough. I want to go home and see the grandchildren and the kids and my friends. It’s late October and I’m tired and I’m fed up. Jim is fed up—he wants to run on grass again and eat scratchings.

I want to go home too, I said. I want to drink beer in Langtry’s with Clifford and my sons-in-law. I want to jog with Jim on the common. I want to go down the running club and see my mates. I want to watch television and try to find something interesting in the Sunday papers and open Christmas parcels with the grandchildren. We’ll come back in April when the canals open again and we’ll tackle the terrible Rhône. And we’ll get down the Rhône, one way or another, to many-towered Carcassonne.

I leaned on the throttle handle and the engine clamoured and we splashed south, between the piles of sand, towards our winter boatyard seventy miles away: into a cold wind, in a silver light.

Nine

JACK THE DISEMBOWELLER

The River Yonne

The weather shrugged—his coat let fall:

The wind, the frost, the needling rain.

In his embroidery again,

Dressed in sunlight overall.

No beast, no bird, that does not call,

Singing or crying, sweet or plain.

The weather shrugged—his coat let fall:

The wind, the frost, the needling rain.

River, fountain, waterfall

All their livery regain.

See the drops of silver shine,

The jewels, and the bright crystal.

The weather shrugged—his coat let fall.

Charles d’Orléans lived seven hundred years ago, I said. We captured him at Agincourt but the king was his uncle so we sold him back to the French. In the Middle Ages a toff could fornicate with his best friend’s wife, kill a man in a swordfight, and turn a reasonable
rondeau
, all before breakfast. Our princes can still fornicate, said Monica.

It was Easter Sunday. We had collected the
Phyllis May
from her winter quarters and were moored in Sens, by the bridge.

It must have been a spring day like today when Charlie wrote his
rondeau
, I said. But the cathedral wasn’t finished, and Sens would have been small, and all over this side of the river, because the Yonne would have been too wide for a bridge. No stone quay, just wood. I suppose they had rowing boats, said Monica—look at the green current, and the fish rising.

Although Jim can fly we have to lift him off the boat. Once he jumped out when he was tied up so you can’t blame him. He stands shivering, his eyes fathomless with reproach—Now you want me to hang myself?

Across the stone quay, past the flower beds, over the road and up the main street. The shops were shut but there were plenty of people around. At the top of the hill someone was throwing narrowboats out of a window, like doors slamming in hell. We expected the main square to be full of twisted iron, but the concussion came from the cathedral. A narrowboat weighs about sixteen tons, and it says in the book that the cathedral has two bells, one weighing fourteen tons and one sixteen. So I wasn’t far out—a couple of octaves below middle C, I would say.

People in the cathedral door collecting euros. Monica slipped inside. Give them something, I said, it will be for the fabric. They were beggars, she said, they smelt of drink.

Many in the Easter crowds asked if they could stroke Jim.
Oh le toutou! Et son foulard! Toutou
is the French for pussy-cat, but for a dog. We don’t have a word like that in English, thank heaven. But translation is impossible even when words and phrases seem to match. The only way is to walk briskly into the topic through a French doorway and wave your arms.

Excuse me again
monsieur
—a small brown old man with a wife and a dog the same. When we met just now, he said, you told me the race of your dog but we have forgotten. A whippet, I said.
Un wee pet
, repeated the small brown old man.
Un wee pet
, repeated his wife,
un wee pet
—the accent as ever on the last syllable. What is the race of your dog? I asked. He is a
péniche
, said the brown old man.
Un péniche
, I repeated. Exactly, said the wife,
un péniche. Bonjour, m’sieur ’dame
, we all said and walked on. Damn funny, I said to Monica, a dog called a barge. Must be some sort of boat dog.
Caniche
, said Monica, a poodle.

We walked back down to the river. He’s not fat, said a child, looking at Jim. He’s all thin, said another. Oh
Maman
, it’s the same dog, said another—that’s the one that jumped me on the way up.

DOWNSTREAM NEAR THE BOATYARD THE BIG retail sheds, among car parks and bad roads and nettles and desolation—shops that have ten thousand of everything. We had to buy provisions, and paint and varnish and thinners and Brasso and brushes. We had allowed a fortnight for restocking, and for freshening up the
Phyllis May
.

In England shops are normally open, and in France they are normally shut. When they are open the lights may be out and you bang on the door to get in. Market stalls close like oysters as you draw near. The brass plates of doctors and lawyers have a piece of paper with yellowing tape saying that no opinion will be offered until ten to three Thursday fortnight. Outside a restaurant in Sens the list of closing times is longer than the menu. There are supermarkets the size of a city that seem to be open from time to time, but they are not—they are going round behind you making faces.

Leclerc supermarket is open but turn up with your films and the photo shop is shuttered. The restaurant is open but All we have this evening,
monsieur
, is a cold tripe sausage and a glass of milk. The bar is open, with pumps, and rows of bottles and tables and chairs and a man in a pinafore and a moustache—selling soft drinks only. The restaurant sells wine by the gallon, but that bit is shut.

Don’t try to understand these things—every nation has its private parts, where no light falls and reason takes a holiday. Think of the Financial Services Authority, or Prince Michael of Kent.

Monica was at the other end of the Leclerc fresh fruit section but there was a slight mist so I couldn’t see her. We reunited joyfully by the fifty yards of soup in boxes, and by asking directions worked our way to the checkout just before Jim died of grief in our camper van outside.

Foir’ Fouille was not so big—the size of Hampton Court maze. It was closing in ten minutes. Acres of plastic flowers and wrapping paper and china fish and pictures that light up and buckets and coloured glass plates and socks with French names on. A discount store.

One Saturday in November I took my mother out in the Black Country. We parked off a red-brick main street that was nearly all discount stores. My mother wasn’t walking much but we went along every gondola. I bought a red Porsche 911 cabriolet for a pound and an antique Chinese vase for fifty pence and some postcards of Alan Ladd as Jay Gatsby. The sunlight was horizontal. We had a sit-down in a baker’s and a cup of orange tea the same colour as the sunlight.

I have looked for that street since but I can’t find it. You can’t find these places again.

TERRY AND MONICA DARLINGTON AND JIM THE NARROW DOG INVITE TOUT LE MONDE CHEZ EVANS MARINE FOR

DRINKS AND NUTS AT SIX

BEFORE THEY LEAVE FOR CARCASSONNE

JUST TURN UP. OR DON’T TURN UP—PLEASE YOURSELVES—SEE IF WE CARE

Before the party I decided to touch up the paint on the radiator. When she heard this Monica went back to bed. Jim greeted the day as he always does—his head and shoulders in Monica’s lap under the quilt and his bum sticking out.

That didn’t take long, I said, as I carried the paint and the brush back towards the engine-room, another job done, ho ho. Then the lid came off the can and the black paint went on to the carpet, into the bathroom, and over the bed. You can get radiator paint off most things with acetone but it takes all morning. You can’t get it off beds.

The radiator dried with streaks down it. I hadn’t read the instructions. Monica put a chair against the radiator, and the coal-box that says
Phyllis May
on the front side. They won’t notice, she said, they wouldn’t have noticed anyway. Then she turned the coal-box round so it said
Kiss Me Again
on the backside.

No one’s going to come, said Monica. It’s no good just telling the boatyard and putting up a notice. We’ll be disgraced. How can we be disgraced? I asked, we don’t know anyone to be disgraced with. If I stand here I can see the boatyard, said Monica. There’s no one coming and it’s half past six. And if they come they’ll be awful or they won’t like us. Another of your lunatic schemes has gone wrong. It was just another excuse for you to find drinking cronies.

We’ll eat the cashews, I said, and drink the beer, and put on Bananarama, and get a garlic sausage out of the fridge, and have a party—you and me and Jim.

But people were walking up from the yard. One arrived with a Starsky screech in an old red Mercedes, and one bumped alongside in a clinker boat. About twenty people turned out.

A narrowboat is a fine place for a party. Out on the bow round the well-deck sit the smokers, who bend forward and talk about lung disease. Inside are the standers, holding close to the cashews. They tell stories about boating or about the country where they were born and where they spend the winter and which is a most remarkable place. Music sounds good on a narrowboat and past the stove there is a place to dance, as long as you don’t move about. The galley makes a good bar, and in the cabin there may be a gentleman asleep on the bed, deceived by a large Ricard. If the young people get bored they can always go into the engine-room and have sex.

He can see hardly at all, said the lady in the suit, and he’s Welsh. Her husband was small with a pointed face and looked straight ahead. I wish he wouldn’t do so much engine maintenance, said Simon from the boatyard—he’ll kill himself on the electrics. He was in the Navy, said the lady in the suit, he was a lieutenant, he’s eighty-four.

Were you in the war? I asked. Yes, said the blind lieutenant, on the motor gunboats, the MGBs. We had three Rolls-Royce Merlin Spitfire engines, each eleven hundred horsepower. I was the engineer officer—it was my job to make sure the engines worked. We are forty-three horsepower, I said, here on the
Phyllis May
. What speed could you do?

We were wood, said the blind lieutenant, seventy feet long, and we went up on the plane and we could do forty-four knots. If we went over a mine, by the time it went off we were gone. Our territory was E-boat Alley, where the convoys went past Dover and the mouth of the Thames. We were there to kill the German E-boats. They were steel with diesel engines and we were full of petrol. We were out every night. We had an Oerlikon 20mm gun—there was a lot of shooting. I can’t say it was very nice.

We went along E-boat Alley, I said, in the
Phyllis May
, but it’s quieter now. I think we got most of the buggers, said the blind lieutenant.

Simon’s mother accepted a plush frog from Jim and he wouldn’t let it go so they pulled each other back and forth the length of the boat until Jim won, as Mrs. Evans is old and not very big. But Jim always wins anyway. We left England in the eighties, said Mrs. Evans, to start a boatyard business in Greece. When we got to Sens people kept asking us to stay a bit longer and we never finished our journey. My husband has gone and now the yard is run by my son Simon.

How did you enjoy your voyage from Paris last year, she asked, down the Seine and the Yonne? Saint-Mammès was nice, I said, with the barges at the canal junction. It was October and in the market they were selling winter coats like they wear in Canada. But when I had the films of the journey developed it was an old roll of film and everything was muddy and grey. We were tired, and that’s how I remember the journey too.

A thin man in jeans explained he was Den from the next boat and though he was sixty and on his own and not pretty or well off he was a bit of a lad. He had spent the whole winter in the Bastille marina because Bruno and Guillaume and Bernard had forgotten he was there. Over Christmas he had met one or two ladies and had spent three days with them. He couldn’t remember anything about the three days and his audience fell back into the cashews.

Monica had invited a reporter who had interviewed us the day before—no more than a student, all in black, too tall for the saloon. When he spoke he did not smile. What is your paper called? I asked.
Le Senonais Libéré,
he said—the
Liberated Person of Sens
. I imagined the first issue of the little paper, sixty years ago, handed out in the street by young men like the reporter, their eyes wild.

Next morning Simon took us to see three boats in his yard that had been across at Dunkirk. They were wooden boats, about thirty feet. They were loaded to the gunwales, said Simon, with water over the back deck—it must have been awful.

One boat was afloat, looking good in white with woodwork and brass, and the other two were in the weeds, held up by stakes, their paint peeling, their windows blank. Across the yard we could hear the blind lieutenant working on his engine.